Euclid’s Expertise

I’m no expert in subjects like geometry, people or what we call space,
but I am open to learning
about any thing
And I have discovered that even when nobody is looking
the sun will shine somewhere
and no body around will notice
the disarray.
No(round)body wants to believe that rounding up or down
is the same,
or that this terra Nuevo is solid and
stretches flat out
beyond sight.
It is easier to focus on what you know.

It is most difficult to sift dirt for gold nuggets
while wearing white gloves.
I wish I had known we needed phosphorus.

Look at the moon! Soak in the sun. between the two,
the eclipse begins.
From this angle the tone is clear.

Between an apple and an orange,
orchard and grove,
notch and needle, I cannot sew,
so I make more pi.

Good shoes, firmly planted, back then
we did not notice we were stuck.
We bury the dead, cover up our dreams, hide our private parts,
and keep our hands to ourselves without a second thought.
We skim across surfaces,
as if buoyancy was our gift,
it could be.

I am no biologist, but I insist on using my senses
to read lines
left in the sand
that glisten like gold and contain
everything we need to know about measuring up
to the given space
for a square peg on a plane.

We needed to make an
impression
that would resonate further than a single dimension.

Naturally, perfect shapes are quite rare
in nature.
Fractals occur nearly everywhere,
proving patterns are purely
people problems.




Painting by Jusepe de Ribero (1591-1692) in Getty Center [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.